aimClear Search Marketing Blog

Twitter and cell phone text messaging (<= 140 characters) have us expressing ourselves in sound bytes, sharpening our writing chops and communicating more whilst using many less words. It’s nothing short of cultural revolution, as our increasingly plugged-in populace evolves to more succinct communication.  In  my opinion this efficiency serves to counter ever-escalating online cacophony. Read the rest of this entry »

March will be an über-busy month for aimClear. In addition to exciting work with a growing cadre’ of well known client-brands, I’ll be speaking in Portland, OR at SearchFest and SearchEngineStrategies New York 2009, where we’ll cover with a 5 blogger crew! Read the rest of this entry »

These days predictive utilities like Trellian, WordTracker and AdWords are only half the keyword research story. State of the art processes combine these standard search predict tools’ output with “what we already know,” by mashing in site-specific datasets at the keyword level.

Additional keyword data might include statistics culled from organic analytics (KW traffic, conversion, behavior criteria), PPC history (CPC, CTR, conversion, etc…) and SEOmoz’s Linkscape (SEO competitiveness-predict).

We all know it’s theoretically useful to “advise” the keyword selection process by aggregating datasets. Very few SEMs actually pull it off. This article will guide you through the process of using spreadsheets to pilot advanced techniques, for API automation later. Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings from Danny Sullivan’s Keynote address from SMX West. I’d just like to take a minute and invite everyone, @SMXWest or not, to join the Twitter Table pal-around. It takes place at lunch today, Noon-1:15pm(1 hr 15 min). It seems to me that a Twitter lunch here can (and will) include folks from EVERYWHERE! Does that sound like fun or what? Read the rest of this entry »

Greetings from CalTrain, heading from Santa Clara to San Francisco Station. After client meetings today in umm …Napa, we’ll be returning to the Santa Clara Convention Center tonight to kick off SMX West 2009.

Regarded as a premiere search marketing conference industry conclave, ‘West promises to be jam-packed with vital information, camaraderie, networking and serious fun. As the sun rises and my  train rumbles through the Mountain View Station, here’s a run down of don’t-miss aimClear SMX highlight activities, including private party information. Read the rest of this entry »

There was a palpable hush in our aimClear rotunda office yesterday afternoon as, *gasp,* I finally caved personally to incorrect usage of of the initials “SEM” to humor our PPC client. Sadly in this wacky world of nearly indistinguishable acronyms, abbreviations and cryptic terms there’s a colloquial tragedy afoot. Even the New York Times got SEM wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Sniff, I remember feeling so emotional to meet such amazing StumbleUpon friends. Now I haven’t been there for pleasure, networking or day-to-day communication in months.

My friends all seem to hang out on Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter now. Did eBay, proud owner of SU, bet 75 million on a dying shark with their May 2007 purchase? Read the rest of this entry »

While classic keyword research counts phrase permutations users search for, Buzz Pocket Mining measures the individual and community-wide social graph. The good news is, incredibly powerful BPM tools are totally free!

“Social graph” simply means categorizing definable pockets of members’ participatory chatter as folks interact, share content, make friends and live lives together. Often expressed by a tag cloud, Buzz Pockets are how we index topical interests, as expressed by users. Read the rest of this entry »

In an wild-west environment replete with social media carpetbaggers, content theft and predatory jerks, qualifying search consultants can be challenging for clients.  Amongst other means, we’ve settled on a holistic strategy to prove advice we offer.

As part of our services we proactively lead clients to search marketing conferences and thought leaders. Think how much confidence this empowering ethic requires.

SEM customers tend to be hands-on kind of folks. They ask great questions, get excited, wish they knew more and are afraid of what they don’t understand. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Gandalfar
In distributing content, it’s possible to increase posts’ propensity to go hot in social channels, simply by publishing correctly to social distribution networks built amongst individuals in your organization.

Publishing “correctly” means, when pressing the CMS “publish” button, your message instantly touches hundreds, thousands and potentially millions of similar-minded folks all over the world. Read the rest of this entry »